


And He Sang

by argle_fraster



Category: Final Fantasy IV
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His father wanted him to be a knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And He Sang

When he was six, he was given a sword; a wooden one, simple really, and hardly sharp enough to scrape skin away, least of all draw blood. His father insisted, with a proud twinkle in his eye, and said _my son, my heir, will be the finest knight Damcyan has ever seen!_ and Edward had practiced every day with the dull blade.  He swung and parried, and his father brought in a special tutor all the way from Eblan, and every night, with the sweat of practicing on his brow, he would go to bed and stare at the wooden sword lying across from his mattress hoping he could make his father proud.

\------

When he was seven, he got another instructor.  His father said that they had to find the _right_ tutor for his style; the last one simply didn't mesh with Edward's controlled and fluids movements. This one was from Fabul.

But even after the practices doubled in length, and he was fitted for the ruby red knight armor, so he could better deal with the added weight of the steel, he was still getting no better at the art of the sword.  He simply wasn't good with parrying blows and arcing his wrist.  He didn't like the way the contact made his arms tremble and shake, nor the way his knees would ache after a long day of lunges.

He kept trying and trying, and his father ordered for a new tutor, and Edward stared up at the moon one lonely night, praying on whatever deity would listen, that he could find his skill and be a knight.

\-------

When he was eight, his father yelled at him for not trying hard enough and throw his wooden blade across the room. It broke and splintered, and his father said _it doesn't matter! We'll get you a new one, a metal one,_ and Edward didn't want another sword at all, so he ran out of the receiving room with tears stinging at the corners of his eyes.  And he'd ran and ran and found himself in the cellars, where the extra cannons and armor pieces were stored, and he curled himself up in the corner and wept until his mouth was dry and his eyes were swollen.

He got up to leave and tripped over a large box, and the dust that filled the air choked him and caught in his throat.  He moved the box to the side and found an object covered with a thick linen cloth; removing it revealed a slightly flaking gold harp, with one string missing and a wobbly foot.

Edward stared at it, and then left, and never put the cloth back over the sloping metal.

\-------

When he was nine, his mother gave birth to a girl, and he had a sister, but she was sickly and weak and coughed a lot, and the White Mages didn't think she would live through the week.  Sure enough, she died after only six days, and the castle was so silent it felt as if the very walls were stifling.  His mother stayed in bed for a long time and didn't move, and the Mages said that she wasn't physically sick, but emotionally sick, and that she was crushed from the loss of the baby.  Edward didn't like to see his mother looking so pale and lost, so he sat by her bed for a long time, trying to think of everything he could to bring her back again.

After exhausting his resources of tomes and fables, stories from far off places like Troia, and finding that nothing worked, Edward started to sing. He sang lullabies and songs he heard from the merchants in town; he sang ballads that some of the traders would sing, and tunes that the barkeep would hum as he washed down the pub.  He sang everything he could think of, and his mother cried for a long time, and a week later she got out of bed.

Her smile was never the same, but she took to hugging him extra hard.

\-------

When he was ten, his father ordered him to begin training with the knights from the barracks, and when Edward refused, his father threatened to disown him from the kingdom entirely. He wasn't entirely sure his father would do it, but he feared the threat anyway, and hid in the cellars until he thought the anger had passed.  While he was down in the musty rooms, he came across the forgotten harp again, and plucked some of the strings with his fingers. He liked the way it sounded, and the way he could play multiple notes at once.  He didn't know how to play any songs, but he knew how to make melodies, and he sat there so long he lost track of the time.  When he returned to his father's chambers, he was asked where he had been, and he said _nowhere, absolutely nowhere, just off thinking is all._

\--------

When he was eleven, he snuck down to the pub and asked the bartender to teach him song of the songs the merchants sang when they came in to trade goods.  The brewmaster taught him a song about the sea and the serpent who ruled it, and Edward sang it for the customers who bought drinks, and one of the traders gave him a shiny coin for his troubles and said you have the _gift of song, m'boy, a rare gift indeed._   And Edward could only think that he didn't want that gift at all, he wanted the gift of the sword, but he kept the coin in his pocket all the same.

\---------

When he was twelve, a group of White Mages from Mysidia passed through the castle, and he snuck out from his fencing lessons to see them. He thought he was hiding well enough until one of the apprentices spotted him through the tapestries, and then he was forced to reveal who he was.  The Elder Mage gave him a stern look over and said _I see, I see, you're the Prince then. Why don't you grace us with a song?_ Edward didn't know how she knew about his singing, but he did as she asked, because he knew better than to deny an Elder Mage a request.

And when he was done, the Elder Mage had looked at him, _you could do more, you know, more with your voice, come here, watch this, listen closely,_ and he learned how to make one of the apprentices fall asleep just by singing a song.

\--------

When he was thirteen, he threw on an old tunic that he'd found in the cellar with the dusty boxes, and put a hat on his hair, and ventured out into the desert surrounding the castle armed with nothing but his voice.  And the first monster he'd come across was a Sahagin, and it shrieked and snarled at him with foam dripping from its fangs, and he'd been so scared that he could hardly even get sound out of his throat.  But he did, and he sang, and the creature's eyes grew heavy until they closed completely and it collapsed into the sands.

He went back in and told his father he wasn't going to be taking fencing lessons anymore.

\--------

When he was fourteen, he had mastered three songs; he could make enemies fall asleep, take away their ability to cast spells by muting their tongues, and make them see double so that they attacked their own horde rather than him.  His father refused to look at him, because he was no longer practicing with his sword, but his mother smiled at him whenever he left under the guise of the red tunic, and she stopped him once to tell him that the tunic had belonged to a great man, a traveling bard, who could charm the world with the power of his voice.

\--------

When he was fifteen, he journeyed to Kaipo on his own, without a hovercraft or an escort, and got all the way to the oasis town with only a small cut on his arm from one of the monsters that had not fallen asleep quickly enough.  He paid for a bed in the inn and said he was a bard, a wandering bard who was seeing the Blue Planet with his own eyes, and no one had taken much notice of him.  That night he went to the pub and sang one of the tales from the chambermaid in the castle, about a great warrior and a sword of light, and after he was done there was a smattering of applause and a few extra coins in his pocket, and the glimpse of a girl with fire-streaked hair and bright green eyes seared into his mind.

\--------

When he was sixteen, his father threatened to disown him again. _You are not a knight!_ he said, looking murderous, _and what good is a prince who cannot fight for his people?_ And Edward had spent several nights in his room thinking about what to say back.  Finally, he had started to leave the castle, and his father stopped him and asked where he was going, and Edward said _I can fight for my people, more than a knight. I can meet them and see them and taste the hardships they face. I can soothe them with song and help them with my voice._

His father had scowled, but let him go, and he'd gone back to Kaipo hoping to find the girl with the red hair again.  She wasn't there, but he sat by the lake and strummed his traveling harp and made up a new song about love and things greater than fighting battles.

\--------

When he was seventeen, he got careless in the desert and was almost killed by a Cockatrice with sharp claws.  His movements got slow and heavy, and he couldn't pick up his feet to avoid the attack, and he thought he was going to die until there was a flash of steel and a banner of flame-colored tresses, and then the cockatrice was dead and gurgling and the girl with the emerald eyes was standing over him with one hand out-stretched.

_You saved me,_ he said, _you saved me,_ and she just laughed, _maybe, maybe I did, maybe you could have saved yourself._ They spent the day talking under the shade of an oasis palm, and she said her name was Anna, and that she thought his hair was pretty, and when he sang to her, her eyes got very dark and soft and he thought she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen.

\--------

When he was eighteen, he snuck out as often as he could to visit Anna in Kaipo, when her father wasn't there, and they sat by the reflecting pool and held hands, and sometimes she would sing with him and he liked the way their voices would dance and intertwine.  He said that she was lovely, and she said that he was brave, and when he told her that he thought he was in love with her, she had kissed him for a long time.

And months later he thought maybe it was time to tell her the truth, to tell her who he really was, and when he said he was the prince of Damcyan, she didn't get angry or turn away like he thought, but put her hand in his, _I like you no matter who you are._

\--------

When he was nineteen, he asked her to marry him, and her father said she couldn't because he was only a bard.  Anna cried and cried, and then stormed out and met him in the desert saying that she hated her father more than anything, and that she would live with him, in the castle, and be his princess no matter what anyone said.  He thought his parents would be angry, but his mother gave Anna many hugs and a room in the castle to sleep in, and smiled a lot more than she used to.

Anna laughed a lot, and joked about teaching him how to fence, and he said he would teach her how to put monsters to sleep with a song, and they spent long days together in the warm sun.

\--------

When he was twenty, Anna was dead.

When he was twenty, his parents were killed and his kingdom was destroyed.

When he was twenty, he met a man with a sword of darkness, a child with a heart of magic, and a woman with love in her eyes.  He found a friend in a Monk with fists of steel, and found forgiveness in the heart of Anna's father.  He survived an attack on the sea.  He saved the lives of his comrades with his songs.

The world was darker than he remembered. Darker, and yet lighter at the same time.

\--------

When he was twenty-one, he was crowned King.

He could not decide what he felt as he looked over the castle, in the late stages of being rebuilt in the glare of the desert sun.  He wondered if he had made his father proud at last.  He wondered if his broken heart would ever learn to love again.  He wondered what his mother would think as he proudly hung the red banner in the hall, smiling as the royal crest of Damcyan rippled softly in the breeze.

And he sang.


End file.
